During the spring semester of the year 2001, I took a second
course in ceramics offered by the Visual Arts Department of
Raritan Valley Community College, which is located in North
Branch, NJ. I finally got the chance to learn how to use a
potter's wheel. The instructor was Ann Tsubota, who is also the
Chair of the department. Her assignment for the final piece was
to be a response to the "Confrontational Clay" exhibit
that was at the American Craft Museum in New York until the
middle of March [1]. We were told visit the exhibit and then
imagine that we had been invited to participate. The sculputre
should incorporate at least 5 thrown pieces.

I used two thrown pieces for the base of my sculpture and
additional ones for the torso and the head. I brought the total
up to 6 by using a throwing stick to make the legs. I used a slab
technique to make the arms, which were also hollow, and I tried
to connect all the interior air spaces to the main opening in the
base. I finished the piece with iron-oxide stain and black engobe
covered by transparent glaze.

The figure portrays what I want to call a
post-post-modern epiphany. Before 1880, I imagine that he was a
modern man who believed that art and politics could be
rationalized with the methods that were proving so successful in
science and industry. Then he suddenly found himself at the gates
of Hell [2]. As a materialist, he thought that no behavior is
inherently moral or immoral and that Heaven and Hell were
fictions made up by organized religions to control weak-minded
people.

Our modern man was so surprised to find himself
at the gates of Hell that he immediately sat down to think about
it. He thought about it very hard for a long time. His
convictions wavered a little after about 40 years because a great
but futile war had left about 8 million civilians dead. However,
it was possible that the rationalization of politics hadn't taken
hold yet, and modern art still seemed promising. After another 25
years, supposedly modern states had indulged in an even greater
war that killed about 35 million civilians including 5 million of
an ethnic minority who were simply exterminated, over 300,000
civilians and prisoners executed after the taking of a single
city, and 250,000 people in two cities blasted by devices
developed in a technical program of heroic proportions.

Seven years later, another heroic technical
program had demonstrated a second type of device that could
easily be thousands of times more destructive than the first one.
Modern states had started to acquire the ability to end
civilization in about 15 minutes of fury. Modern art in the US
also reached its logical conclusion by embracing formalism, which
is a theory that says a work of art should not refer to anything.
After another 7 years, this period ended abruptly when Andy
Warhol demonstrated, with his Brillo-box sculptures, that one
could no longer distinguish works of art from ordinary objects
[3].

The Thinker still believed that pre-modern values
had been based on superstition, but he felt compelled to give up
the idea that politics and art were going to be successfully
rationalized any time soon. Therefore, he decided to view all
cultures and life styles as equally valid. This opened up a wide
range of art that hadn't been taken seriously until then. It also
unleashed a sexual revolution. Unfortunately, it did not end the
targeting of civilians in wars. A couple of generations later, a
serious flaw has become apparent in multiculturalism, too. A new
sexually-transmitted disease emerged that has already taken the
lives of over 21 million people. Thirty-five million more are
living with it, and the human cost seems destined to surpass that
of World War II.

After seeing 120 years of unsuccessful social
experiments motivated by modern and post-modern theories, the
Thinker finally realized that pre-modern values weren't
irrelevant just because the arguments that were used to support
them no longer make sense. While it may be true that no action is
inherently moral or immoral, and even though a cultural precedent
can be given for almost any kind of behavior, what really matters
is what one knows about the possible consequences. We commit a
fault when the life of another human being might be shortened as
a direct result of our actions.